SparkNotes Readers' Notes for As You Like It: What is to Shakespeare 'The Forest of Arden' in his play 'As You Like It'? What is to Shakespeare 'The Forest of Arden' in his play 'As You Like It'? by Shehanaz , December 09, 2013 9 out of 10 people found this helpful ‘AS YOU LIKE IT’- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ************************************************************* AS YOU LIKE IT IS A SHAKESPEARE'S ROMANTIC COMEDY, BLENDING WITH LOVE-HEROISM-SENTIMENT-ADVENTURE-AND PURE FUN. THE FOREST IS MERELY A GOLDEN WORLD, BUT ITS CONTENTMENT HAS DEALT OF THE BITTER LESSONS OF LIFE. (DR.S.SEN) PRONOUNCE THE WORD 'ARDEN'-PERHAPS A PUN BY PRONOUNCING IT A-DEN-- A FOLIAGE OF MATERIALISTIC WORLD. ****************************************************** “The Forest of Arden, according to the play reflects the different -state -of -mind of the various characters of the play itself”-Discuss.

“There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Every story narrated or dramatized has an artistic structure which may be called its architectural design. The different elements of the story, technically known as the plot, are characters, incidents and the atmosphere born out of the union of these two. Characters unfolding themselves through incidents which often mould them,or incidents revealing characters through narration and dialogue, are so skillfully adapted to each other and vitally connected as ultimately to conceal the parts in the symmetrical beauty or realized harmony of the whole. Every interesting story arises out of a conflict, absence of which will make it dull and unexciting. There are, generally speaking, two main movements required to achieve this artistic result- a movement of Complication and a movement of Resolution. Between these two movements the plot will develop through many ups and downs which follow a well-regulated course. Structurally the natural divisions of a drama are fivefold, roughly corresponding to its five acts in the Elizabethan play.

“Truths that wake, Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy.” While Romance admits the comic spirit within a corner of the field, the area is strictly limited. Romance and the comic spirit cannot well live together on terms of equality. In Shakespearean comedy, the comic spirit has to minister to the purposes of Romance and not the other way about. The truth of this observation can be seen in how the characters of Benedick and Beatrice, though seen in a comic setting in the beginning, emerge finally as Romantic characters, with both of them acting as the Champions of hero who is subjected to such ill merited suffering. On a lower plane it is true of Dogberry and Verges also. As Peter Quennell says: “Dogberry like Bottom was intended to raise a cultured laughter.” Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden is an imaginary setting in As you Like it and it is futile and unnecessary to try and find its actual counterpart in the world- whether in France or in England. What matters is that the Forest of Arden has a significant role in As You like It.

“Pythagoras said, that this world, was like a stage Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the stage Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn The manneres of all nations.” In such a place, in such an atmosphere, Love is the central light, the infallible intelligence, the chief source of life and happiness. And this love is identified primarily with a young woman. She is the Shakti of this universe; she is beauty, truth and rarity and inspires similar virtues (or values) in her lover. “For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn Than women’s are.’’ In Shakespeare’s mature comedy-it is worth remembering that in comedy Ben Jonson put him above the classics- he presents ‘a harmonious society in which each person’s individuality is fully developed and yet is in perfect tune with all others’. While keeping to the old principle that comedy portrays characters, he profoundly modified it by deepening and strengthening each separate character, developing the relations between different characters, until the characters became the plot. As You Like It has a systematically worked–out plot.

Its principal plot is to illustrate the ultimate happy fate or the denouement of pair of lovers after passing through some struggles and difficulties. This is the story of the love between Orlando and Rosalind. Round about it there are three sub-plots, having the same theme of love between pairs. These sub-plots merge into the main plot in such a way as to leave no impression of their independent existence. The sub-plots are- the love between Oliver and Celia, the love between Silvius and Phebe, the love between Touchstone and Audrey. All these have happy endings in marriage. The aim of the dramatist in constructing these subplots is to produce the impression that the atmosphere of the play is one of genuine, undiluted love, serenity, joy and peace. The governing idea of the dramatist in constructing the plots of Gloucester and Edmund as a parallel to the main plot of Lear and his daughters. “I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one,” Arden is not untouched by the world of reality and its sorrows, but it is a place where those who come to it discover certain abiding truths about life.

The characters get a conviction that gay and the gentle can endure the rubs of fortune to find happiness in them and in others on this earth. The characters also realize certain truths. The masque of Hymen marks the end of this interlude in the greenwood, and announces the return to a court purged of envy and baseness. As in all comedy the characters realize the truth about themselves through trial and error, and the change is for the better. Thus Rosalind as Ganymede discovers she can play no more but must accept Orlando’s love. By loving a shadow, the mere image of a charming youth, Phebe discovers that it is better love than to be loved and scorn one’s lover. If we consult the evidence of the play it will be abundantly clear that Love-at-first-sight is the main theme of the comedy, As You Like It. All the lovers in this play, courtiers as well as rustics, follow this kind of love. Rosalind and Orlando fall in love with each other the moment they see each other; and the rest of the lovers following the same course.

Such a conception of love is romantic, and Shakespeare has employed unhesitatingly for no less than four pairs of lovers, two from the higher and two from the lower class of society, follow such a mode of romantic love. Whether one agrees or not with such a mode of love one cannot but observe that in this play this motive of love eventuates in the happiness of all the lovers. In a Romantic Comedy, the main stress is on the story of these loves-a story, says Mark Hunter, “treated seriously, moving through a number of checks and trying complications to a prosperous ending.” It is, besides, “ a story not only of high life, but of the highest in each particular case possibly”, but allied to the main story, there are invariably other stories also, but-like silk threads, of diverse colours-all are cunningly woven into a single texture: “Through complexity of plot if secured a compensating variety, both variety of character-interest, and variety of delight afforded by the alternation of two or more Romantic themes, together with a greater or lesser admixture of pure Comedy, not Romantic.” That Shakespeare is an artist hardly needs asserting in the present day.

It is true that his art was probably far less self conscious that that of Milton or of Tennyson, that it was probably more intuitive than aforethought. The distinction, however, is probably not so important as its seems. A great artist does not need rules or conscious analysis to tell him what is good and what is evil. Any analysis that may be necessary may be done sub-consciously. “Shallow. “Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I be young for your sake, Mistress Anne. Anne. The dinner is on the table.”’ The presentation of love on the stage is fraught with grave dangers even when attempted by a great artist; for it has a natural tendency towards degenerating into the ridiculous. Lyric poetry remained the appropriate domain for love’s expression in creative. It was only post-Renaissance dramatists who made a bold experiment in introducing love as an absorbing theme in drama. In the Elizabethan age romantic love often became the main ingredient of novels and dramas. To Elizabethan people “to live be to love, and to love was to love romantically.

That was for them a fact of experience.” It was left to Shakespeare and his great contemporaries to achieve a mystical alliance between comedy and romance and to elevate comedy from the region of the farcical and the ludicrous to the realm of the poetic and the romantic. A note of high seriousness often characterized a comedy of love, As You Like it. It is replete with different portrayals of love. “I have seen the day, with good biting falchion, I would have made them skip: I am old now. And these same crosses spoil me.” Like Thomas Hardy’s Edgon Heath, Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden is not simply a background of the plot; nay it is itself a character, perhaps the most important character of the play. “It has its own soul, a vital breath- that possesses the greatest reformative and constructive power.

It reforms the wicked, selfish and cruel Oliver; it softens the aching hearts of the weary pilgrims, who come to it; it brings about a reconciliation between the Dukes, and finally, it is the Forest Of Arden which unties the separate lovers-Orlando and Rosalind- infusing a spirit of love into other characters.” “If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear.” “The play treats of the gifts of Nature and the ways of Fortune. Orlando, given little is brought too much. Rosalind and Celia, born too much, are brought to little. The Duke, born to all things, is brought to nothing. The usurping Duke, born to nothing climbs too much, desires all, and at last, renounces all. Oliver born too much, aims all little more, loses all, and at last, renounces all. Touchstone, the wordly-wise, marries a fool Audrey, born a clown, marries a courtier. Phebe, scorning a man falls in love with a woman.

The play is a little picture of this world, as Hallam observes, but it is a picture in mellow and soothing colours of gaiety.” “I am much sorry, sir, You put me to forget a lady’s manners, By being so verbal.” The practical value of the songs in the play was to entertain the audience with music. The Elizabethans were great lovers of music and they always welcomed songs. While he conceded to the popular demand for songs he introduced into them some significance on the context in which they were sung. In As you Like It we have half a dozen songs primarily intended to heighten the psychological effect of the scene in which they are sung. For instance the song in the Forest scene beginning with “Blow, blow thou winter wind,” has the effect of intensifying the pathos of the situation. The sense of ingratitude under which the banished Duke is acutely suffering is made more poetical and so endurable, by the beauty of the song and aptness of its sentiments.

In the songs of country life which this play contains we find a different significane.These songs (“Under the greenwood tree”) heighten the sense of rural bliss and innocence by expressing through musical words and serenity and peace that pervades the countryside. Thus we may say that the songs in Shakespeare’s generally serve the purpose of intensifying the effect of the scenes and situations in which they are introduced. The world of Arden has not the rarefied atmosphere of an unearthly region; this forest is emphatically real and feelingly earthy. It is subject to the change of seasons; eternal spring does not reign here. The struggle for existence is as acute here as in the city. The shepherd and the shepherdess are not ideal and innocent persons of the golden age breathing the idyllic atmosphere of Arcadia. A heartless coquette like Phebe and an ‘ill-favoured’ Audrey easily capable of deserting her true love for becoming the snobbish wife of a courtier, are found to dwell within its extensive air.

Boas says: “The sentimentality of the orthodox pastoral is entirely absent, and in its place we have the ruddy vigour, the leaping pulse and play of the open-air life that ‘loves to live in the sun’. Never has the charm of outdoor existence found more matchless expression.” As You Like It owes its charm and beauty to the flavor love that pervades the plot. The drama maintains a number of love episodes, which as a matter of fact spring from the main fountain- love between Orlando and Rosalind, but there is another touch of love in the play, which distinguishes it from most of the Shakespearean comedies. It is the innocent yet sincere and penetrating love between the two cousins Rosalind and Celia. “What would you have, Your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness.” It is to be noted that the first impression of Arden is not very attractive to any of those who escape to it. “Well, this is the forest of Arden,” says Rosalind in apparently unenthusiastic tones. Touchstone calls himself foolish for having come there. The Forest of Arden is no conventional Arcadia.

It is not a place where the laws of Nature are abrogated and roses are without thorns. Life’s roughness is very much in evidence in Arden. The herd abandons the wounded deer. Winter and rough weather, the season’s differences, the icy fangs and churlish chiding of the winter’s wind invade Arden as often as they invade this hemisphere of ours. Nor does Manna fall to it from heaven. One may come by a sufficient sustenance of flesh ,if one has the weapons and the impulse to make a breach in the conventionality of idyllic Nature by killing its own creatures, the deer, to whom the Forest is assigned a native dwelling place. Rosalind and Orlando will return to live their adult life in the society of men and in civilization, which will impose upon them their duties of extended social responsibilities. “Come, woo me, for now I am in a Holiday humour and like enough to consent.” It is easy to see how As You Like It conforms to the conventions of the pastoral tradition. We find, for example, a plentiful crop of rustic scenes and situations of shepherdess, and all the other associations of a pastoral life.

Even the principal figure of the comedy the heroine herself, takes to the life and manners of the shepherds in the major portion of the play. Rosalind buys the estate of a shepherd in the Forest of Arden and lives the life of simplicity and unsophisticated innocence. Besides, it is as a disguised shepherd youth that Rosalind appears in her best wit and intelligence. Her mock wooing of Orlando, her complications as a girl in the dress of a boy and, finally, her splendid resources of wit in reducing all these complications to an easy and happy ending- all these prove that Shakespeare exploited the pastoral convention in the service of comedy. The songs are a notable feature of As You Like It. The forest would be dead without them. They are all old and plain; no luscious madrigals or quaint eclogues but songs of the greenwood and the holly, of the chase and country love. The themes are all the better for being old-fashioned: they awake the echoes of Robin Hood, and their music and association help not a little to convey that open air feeling that pervades the play, and which mere convey that open air feeling that pervades the play and which mere description cannot always impart.

Here the sylvan predominates over pastoral; we are in Sherwood not in Arcadia, as J.C. Smith says. “He that brings this love to thee Little knows this love in me: And by him seal up thy mind; Whether that thy youth and kind Will the faithful offer take Of me and all that I can make; Or else by him my love deny, And then I’ll study how to die.” By a pastoral comedy we mean a play in which the characters belong to the rustic class, specially shepherds and shepherdesses. The situations of such plays are romantically simple and pure and innocent, and the story usually delineates the peaceful and enviable life of these figures that love and enjoy life in an ideal fashion. They have no cares and burdens. They always get what they wish, and they end in a happy atmosphere of joy and felicity. Such, in the main, are the elements of a pastoral story whether in fiction or in drama.

“Thus men may grow wiser every day; it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.” Shakespeare builds up his ideal world and lets his idealists scorn the real one, but into their midst he introduces people who mock their ideals and others who mock them. One must not say that Shakespeare never judges but one judgment is always being modified by another. Opposite views may contradict one another but of course, they do not cancel out. Instead they add up to an all embracing view far larger and more satisfying than any one of them by itself. As You Like It belongs to the group of plays consisting of Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night which are splendid specimens of Shakespearean’s mastery of the comic and dramatic art. These plays are characteristic Elizabethan romantic comedies- plays which satisfied the curiously Elizabethan demand for drama catering to the romantic as well as the comic instinct of the audiences. Neither the extreme of idealism nor those of materialism, as they are variously represented, emerge as “the good life” in As You Like It. through the device of contrast an effective balanced view emerges.

“West of this place, down in the neighbor bottom; The rank osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand brings you to the place. But at this hour the house doth keep itself; There’s none within.” We may, however, note one thing while discussing As You Like It as a pastoral comedy. The pastoral creation of the ancient writers usually verge on the improbable and almost fantastic side. This results in the impression of artificiality in an endeavour to escape from it, but in the consummate art of Shakespeare even the idealization which is inevitable in the application of the pastoral convention is touched with probability and realism with the result that his characters remain endearingly human. Their motives may be romantic but their passions and sentiments are human and worldly-wise. In other words, it may be said that in Shakespeare’s hands the pastoral convention is humanized. The union of Rosalind and Orlando in happy wedlock has been the objective aimed at from the beginning and this is now finally attained, but the crowning achievement of the heroine lies not only in her own happiness but also in winning happiness for others. All the different pairs of lovers have their heart’s desire fulfilled-it is As You Like It.

“We that are true lovers run into strange capers; But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature In love mortal in folly.” The purpose of the Exposition is ‘to put the audience in possession of all information that is essential for the property understanding of the play.’ It prepares us for the aviation, but it is really independent of the plot proper. In As You Like It the preliminary information consists chiefly of : (a) the banishment of the elder Duke, the unexpected presence of his only daughter Rosalind at the usurper’s court, and (b) the will of Sir Rowland de Boys and the ill-treatment of Orlando at the hands of his elder brother Oliver. Thus the two main threads out of which the love story will be woven are suggested e even at the outset; the hero and the heroine have been introduced in the midst of circumstances which are strikingly similar in many respects. The Wrestling Match is the initial incident which starts the action: and the seed of this great love is shown here. Here is also the genesis of the main conflict between our hero and the heroine on one side and Oliver and the usurper ranged against them on the other.

“O my life, his malice’s against the lady Will suddenly break forth.” “Other and inferior writers would have worked out their descriptions with all pettiness and impertinence of detail” says Coleridge, regarding the pastoral atmosphere created by Shakespeare. In fact Shakespeare has not cared to describe at large these pictured of pastoral scenery: he has as the master artist adopted the unique method of subtle suggestion. By a few strokes of the painter’s brush he has succeeded in creating not only the appropriate pastoral back ground but also a vast and vivid woodland scene studded with some landmarks,e.g., he Duke’s cave, Rosalind’s cottage, the antique oak, and the crawling brook. So superb has been the success of this delineation that we seem to breathe ‘the very breath of the woods and the mountains’. Public theatres of the Elizabethan age had no painted scenes. The dramatist had thus to depend entirely on his own poetic art and his power of stimulating their imaginative capacity of his audience. There are two levels of awareness at work in the scene. The audience’s awareness is at one with Rosalind’s; Orlando’s awareness falls short. To this extent, the climactic scene is structurally simple.

But in, very simplicity it is magnificient.The compensation for the lack of complexity comes the wooing scene in As You Like It is different from similar scenes in Shakespearean comedies. There is in this play different level of awareness and ignorance which make the wing scene all the more interesting dramatically and thematically. The wooing scene, in fact, is the climax as far as the theme of ignorance and awareness is concerned. As Rosalind disguised as Ganymede questions and argues with Orlando who does not know Ganymede’s identity, there is much fun as well as serious comment implicit for audience. “For thou thyself hast been a libertine As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That thou with license of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.” In the width of the discrepancy in the awareness of the lovers. The wooing scene deliberately exploits this gap in the awareness of the lovers. The wooing scene deliberately exploits this gap in the awareness. The exploitation is not thin. Neither the relation of the participants nor the situation changes at all during the action. At the beginning, Rosalind knows everything and Orlando nothing; it is the same at the end.

However, at the end of the scene. Rosalind’s conviction about Orlando’s love has received a final confirmation. There is a blending of the magic and the comic even in the sunny, joyous and bright comedy of As You Like it. Thus the play opens with a quarrel between the brothers-Oliver and Orlando. The former makes attempts to take the life of the latter. We also get distinctly tragic elements in the sorrow of the banished Duke, which he philosophies away; in the melancholy of Rosalind due to the banishment of her father, which is dispelled by the cheery optimism of Celia; in the pathetic fate of the three unfortunate sons of the old man, who are injured by the wrestler. There is also something like the tragic element in the disappointment of Silvius regarding Phebe. These tragic elements are harmoniously, delicately, and artistically blended with and merged into the comic elements. The court milieu at the beginning of AS You Like It then, is one in which disorder flourishes. Life in the Forest of Arden is contrasted with “that of painted pomp” with the perilous life in “the envious court”.

This is the “court versus country” theme which recurs in Shakespeare in other plays. The fidelity and conscience piousness of the old servant Adam are contrasted by Orlando with the general rule that obtains in this environment. And it is Adam himself who gives what is perhaps the most striking evidence of the disorder that is rampant. It may be well to point out that Shakespeare does not believe that court life must necessarily be corrupt and disordered. In fact he is concerned in As You Like It to point out by implication that escapism is no solution: at the end of the play, we have most of the exiles returning from the Forest of Arden, and we are clearly meant to understand that the court environment has been rid of its evil. Disorder has been set right. “Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?” In the true order of things a man’s graces and virtues should assist him in his life, but here a man’s virtues are a danger to him, exciting the envy of others. The true order of things is inverted.

Speaking to Orlando he says: “O, what a world is this, when what is comely Envenoms him that bears it!” The Forest has a great deal of influence on the people who stray into it. We see the shady dark green landscape in the background and breathe in imagination the fresh air of the forest. The hours are here measured by no clocks, no regulated recurrence of duty or toil; they flow on unnumbered in voluntary occupation or fanciful idleness, to which every one addicts himself according to his humour or disposition; and this unlimited freedom compensated all of them for the lost conveniences of life. One throws himself down solitary under a tree, and indulges in melancholy reflections on the changes of fortune; others make the woods resound with social and festive songs to the accompaniment of their horns. Selfishness, envy, and ambition have been left in the city behind them. The wit of touchstone is a dainty kind of absurdity worth comparison with the melancholy of Jaques.

And Orlando in the beauty and strength of early manhood, and Rosalind-“a gallant curtle axe upon her thigh, a broad spear in her hand, and the bright tender, loyal womanhood, within”-are figures which quicken and restore our spirits. But upon, no one does the air of Arden work as powerfully as upon the banished Duke. He extracts some useful lessons from his life of banishment in the forest. He draws a contrast between “painted pomp” of court life and the life of careless ease in the Forest of Arden. The life at court is full of envy, malice and ambition. But of, the forest life is sweeter and more “free from peril.” But even, when he shrinks from the cold winter wind, he feels it is better than the flattering courtiers. While the courtiers at court are only enemies in disguise, the cold wind is an open enemy and does not flatter him. The Duke also realizes the sweet uses of adversity. The forest life has many things to teach. Every object in Nature has a lesson of its own. He finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.

“Thou art not for the fashion of these times. Where none will sweat but for promotion. And having that, do choke their service up Even with the having; it is not so with thee.” “The dramatist presents us with a pastoral comedy of the characters of which , instead of belonging to the ideal pastoral age, are true copies of what nature will produce under similar conditions” (Halliwell). The pastoral poet of convention clothed courtiers in the shepherds’ dress and put into mouths sentiments of an advances civilization. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has given us real shepherds-Corin and William and Audrey, “whose language is the language of the fields, whose hands saviour of the wood and sheep, and whose persons exhale the odour of the goat-pen or the dairy” as Stanley Wood says, but the characters of Rosalind, Orlando and Duke are certainly ideal ones-although like every ideal, they are based on the actual; they represent experiences idealized. “Well, I’ll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree.

He hath been all this day to look you.” ****************************************************** “My fortunes were more able to relieve her; But I am shepherd to another man, And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:” **************************************** AS YOU LIKE IT As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the First Folio, 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility. As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia and Touchstone the court jester, to find safety and eventually love in the Forest of Arden. Historically, critical response has varied, with some critics finding the work of lesser quality than other Shakespearean works and some finding the play a work of great merit. The play features one of Shakespeare's most famous and oft-quoted speeches, "All the world's a stage", and is the origin of the phrase "too much of a good thing".

The play remains a favourite among audiences and has been adapted for radio, film, and musical theatre. SYNOPSIS The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the Forest of Arden, which may be intended for the Ardennes in France, but is sometimes identified with Arden, Warwickshire, near Shakespeare's home town. Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. The Duke's daughter Rosalind has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin of Frederick's only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who has fallen in love at first sight with Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the jester Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor lady.

Rosalind, now disguised as Ganymede ("Jove's own page"), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for "stranger"), arrive in the Arcadian Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including "the melancholy Jaques," a malcontent figure, who is introduced to us weeping over the slaughter of a deer. "Ganymede" and "Aliena" do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions, as they meet up with Corin, an impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his master's rude cottage. Orlando and his servant Adam (a role possibly played by Shakespeare himself, though this story is said to be apocryphal), meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, meets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love. Ganymede says "he" will take Rosalind's place and "he" and Orlando can act out their relationship.

The shepherdess Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede (actually Rosalind), though "Ganymede" continually shows that "he" is not interested in Phebe. Touchstone, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the dull-witted shepherdess Audrey, and tries to woo her, but eventually is forced to be married first. William, another shepherd, attempts to marry Audrey as well, but is stopped by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him "a hundred and fifty ways". Finally, Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede. Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent for mistreating Orlando. Oliver meets Aliena (Celia's false identity) and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry.

Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey all are married in the final scene, after which they discover that Frederick has also repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to the dukedom and adopt a religious life. Jaques, ever melancholy, declines their invitation to return to the court preferring to stay in the forest and to adopt a religious life as well. Rosalind speaks an epilogue to the audience, commending the play to both men and women in the audience. Sir Oliver Martext, a curate Other characters: Lords and ladies in Duke Frederick's court Lords in Duke Senior's forest court Pages and musicians Hymen, a character appearing in a play-within-the-play; God of marriage, as appearing in a masque FILM As You Like It was Laurence Olivier's first Shakespeare film. Olivier, however, served only in an acting capacity (performing the role of Orlando), rather than producing or directing the film. Made in England and released in 1936, As You Like It also starred director Paul Czinner's wife Elizabeth Bergner, who played Rosalind with a thick German accent.

Although it is much less "Hollywoody" than the versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet made at about the same time, and although its cast was made up entirely of Shakespearean actors, it was not considered a success by either Olivier or the critics. Helen Mirren starred as Rosalind in the 1978 BBC videotaped version of As You Like It, directed by Basil Coleman. In 1992, Christine Edzard made another film adaptation of the play. It features James Fox, Cyril Cusack, Andrew Tiernan, Griff Rhys Jones, and Ewen Bremner. The action is transposed to a modern and bleak urban world. A film version of As You Like It, set in 19th-century Japan, was released in 2006, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard, David Oyelowo, Romola Garai, Alfred Molina, Kevin Kline, and Brian Blessed. Although it was actually made for cinemas, it was released to theatres only in Europe, and had its U.S. premiere on HBO in 2007.

And although it was not a made-for-television film, Kevin Kline won a Screen Actors Guild award for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, for his performance as Jaques. TV Review: A likable take on Shakespeare play | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Review: A likable take on Shakespeare play August 20, 2007 11:00 PM By Christopher Rawson Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The more Shakespeare changes, the more it stays the same. He set his flippantly named "As You Like It" in the Forest of Arden, which happens to be a forest near his native Stratford-on-Avon. Arden was also his mother's maiden name, which provides good grist for those who like their interpretations Freudian as well as geographical. But the action in the play seems to take place in France, as the names of some characters (Amiens, LeBeau, Jacques, LeBoys) suggest. Perhaps the forest is really that of the Ardennes and is given an English pronunciation.

But here comes Kenneth Branagh, the busiest current interpreter of Shakespeare on film, with a movie of "As You Like It," to debut tonight at 9 on HBO. And he sets it in late-Victorian ... Japan! In justification, he notes that there are actually few place names in Shakespeare's text, "so you could argue that the Forest of Arden is a mythical place, or, if you like, a state of mind." Well, why not, if that's as you like it? And Branagh's "Japan" is hardly Japanese. Many costumes are, but the acting company is largely Anglo, with Japanese actors filling in the crowd scenes. Branagh's Forest of Arden is mainly just plain lovely, with a delicate Japaneasy atmosphere created mostly by set decoration and cinematography, with a substantial assist from the original music of Patrick Doyle. In terms of culture, Branagh's "As You Like It" is no more Japanese than is Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado." So we are back where we started, in a make-believe Arden, but an Arden with a sensitive awareness of nature and its meditative magic.

What Branagh's adaptation and direction do best is to focus on the transforming power of nature, curbing some of the play's usual hijinks much as a Zen-like feeling for nature curbs the rough, aggressive passions with which the play begins. The central story is of cousins Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Celia (Romola Garai), daughters of the rightful Duke and his usurping brother. With Rosalind disguised as a boy, they flee the bad Duke's dark and angry court, accompanied by the jester, Touchstone (Alfred Molina), and arrive in the forest, which is described (in a famous line which Branagh tellingly holds back until late in the movie) as a place where exiles disport themselves in a golden age like that of Robin Hood of old. There they find the good Duke and his men, including the contemplative wit, Jacques (Kevin Kline), along with handsome young Orlando (David Oyelowo), who has fled his murderous brother and is now free to lament the absence of Rosalind, his love.

She makes the most of the situation by pretending, in her boyish guise, to be that same Rosalind, the better to take the temperature of his love and her own. All this is pretty much as Shakespeare wrote it, though Branagh has pruned the text considerably, letting pictures tell much of the tale. He films the sudden usurpation, which is only reported in Shakespeare, using ninja warriors. But his greatest innovation is to give greater depth to the two villains, the bad Duke and Orlando's cruel brother, Oliver (Adrian Lester). We see the psychic pain their villainy causes them, so that their eventual reformations, which often cause laughter in the theater, here seem plausible enough. The actor who benefits most from this is Brian Blessed, a regular member of Branagh's Shakespearean stock company, who gets to play both dukes, mirroring the sunny sweetness of the one with the bilious torment of the other. Howard is a fresh and charming red-haired Rosalind who makes a vivacious boy, and Garai is scrumptious as her blonde second fiddle Celia.

Both can be a bit stagey at times, but the former is an articulate catechizer of love and both are luminous when they discover love themselves. Some details don't make sense, such as the courtier who speaks for the wrestler, Charles, and at times the sugar content is too high, as in the final dance of joy, much like that in Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing." But then there's that gorgeous scenery, so beautifully shot by Roger Lanser, with its basketwork bridge and Zen garden of rock and sand. There are several good "Twelfth Nights" on film and even more "Midsummer Night's Dreams," but we've never before had a good "As You Like It." This one is welcome.

'As You Like It' As You Like It | ﻿Southern Shakespeare Festival As You Like It Home » About Us » Our History » As You Like It As You Like It The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the Forest of Arden, which may be intended for the Ardennes, a forested region covering an area located in southeast Belgium, western Luxembourg and northeastern France, but sometimes is identified with Arden, Warwickshire, near Shakespeare’s home town, which was the ancestral origin of his mother’s family, who incidentally were called Arden. Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. The Duke’s daughter, Rosalind, has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin of Frederick’s only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who at first sight has fallen in love with Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court.

Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the jester, Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor lady. Rosalind, now disguised as Ganymede (“Jove’s own page”), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for “stranger”), arrive in the Arcadian Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including “the melancholy Jaques,” a malcontent figure, who is introduced to us weeping over the slaughter of a deer. “Ganymede” and “Aliena” do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions, as they meet up with Corin, an impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his master’s crude cottage. Orlando and his servant Adam, meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. (The role of Adam may have been played by Shakespeare, though this story is said to be apocryphal.) Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, meets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love.

Ganymede says “he” will take Rosalind’s place and “he” and Orlando can act out their relationship. The shepherdess, Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise), though “Ganymede” continually shows that “he” is not interested in Phebe. Touchstone, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the dull-witted shepherdess, Audrey, and tries to woo her, but eventually is forced to be married first. William, another shepherd, attempts to marry Audrey as well, but is stopped by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him “a hundred and fifty ways”. Finally, Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede. Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent for mistreating Orlando.

Oliver meets Aliena (Celia’s false identity) and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry. Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey all are married in the final scene, after which they discover that Frederick also has repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to the dukedom and adopt a religious life. Jaques, ever melancholic, declines their invitation to return to the court preferring to stay in the forest and to adopt a religious life as well. Rosalind speaks an epilogue to the audience, commending the play to both men and women in the audience. As You Like It JULY 9 TO 25, 2015 SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT'S FIRST PRODUCTION IN ITS NEW PARKING LOT. Shakespeare's lovers will escape to a Steampunk-style Forest of Arden. Parking Lot behind The Clemente (Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center), 114 Norfolk Street (E. side of Norfolk St.

between Delancey and Rivington) Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 PM FREE Subways: F to Delancey Street, M to Essex Street. Running time 2 hours. Previews July 9 & 10, opens July 11. Visit our photo album The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has found a new home in the Parking Lot behind The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center (CSV), 114 Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets. The troupe has kicked off the third decade of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot there July 9 to 26 with "As You Like It," directed by Artistic Director Hamilton Clancy. The production will offer delightful lessons of love, starting off in a stately English Victorian world and moving into a Steampunk paradise when the scene shifts from a conventional Duchy to the mythical Forest of Arden. In 2014, having lost its space in the municipal parking lot at Ludlow and Broome Streets, The Drilling Company sought a new location in the Lower East Side to continue the 20 year tradition of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot.

After a nine-month search, this new location adjacent to CSV was arranged. Like the previous location, it is a working parking lot and it will have the urban, gritty atmosphere that made these productions memorable through the years. The concept of free Shakespeare in a parking lot, presented with a "poor theater" aesthetic, is now widely imitated around the US and around the world, with productions as far away as New Zealand. The new location is just three blocks from the municipal parking lot where the plucky annual Free Shakespeare festival originated in 1995. "As You Like It" is a perennial favorite among Shakespeare's comedies. Its plot follows the banishment of Duke Senior, Orlando, Rosalind (who goes about in male drag to beguile the gallant Orlando), Celia, Oliver and Touchtstone to the Forest of Arden. In this refuge for those driven out of society, everybody gets lessons in love. The action is fierce in the first half: murders are attempted, ribs are cracked in wrestling matches, a brother is disowned, a niece is exiled and loyalties are sorely tested.

For those who end up in the Forest of Arden during the second half, the perils are chiefly falling in love or being outwitted by wit. "As You Like It" introduces some of Shakespeare's most memorable characters, notably the sharp-tongued, ever-jaded Jacques. Each major character represents a quality of love: familial love is personified by Rosalind and Celia, brotherly love by the Dukes, Orlando and Oliver, the blind love of devotion by Silvius, the love of service by Adam and Corin, the love of self by Jacques and the love of lust by Touchstone. In keeping with the play's magical spirit, director Hamilton Clancy is transporting this "As You Like It" into a timeless period with costumes that hint of the classical Victorian era. They become Steampunk when the scene shifts to the Forest of Arden. The idea is to address the core elements of romance and love by savoring the romantic magic of retreating from modern culture to an imaginary place where lovers can be free. "There is freedom in history, in a bygone era" says director Hamilton Clancy. The production will be designed by Leontine Greenberg.

There wll be original music composed by Natalie Smith and sound design by Abby Grossman. The actors are Jane Bradley as Rosalind, Ahmed Koudous as Orlando, Elaine Ivy Harris as Celia, Emanuel Elpenord as Oliver, Alessandro Colla as Touchstone, Hayley Simmonds as Audrey, Aaron Scott as Duke Senior/Fredrick, Sott Baker as Jacques, Andrew Dahreddine as Corin/Charles the Boxer, Rachel Collins as Phoebe, Brandon Reilley as Silvius, Bill Green as Adam, and Sara Glancy and Aly Talley as Company Players. In setting the play in Victorian England, it seemed appropriate to perform it in British accents. This will be the company's first production in such a dialect, although its performing season started out in dialects, to be sure. Last month, for Bryant Park Shakespeare, The Drilling Company performed "Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Noo Yawk accents, since the play was transported to Little Italy. The choice of "As You Like It" to open the new Shakespeare in the Parking Lot location was partly sentimental.

When The Drilling Company took over as sole producer of Shakespeare in the municipal parking lot on Ludlow and Broome Streets in 2006, "As You Like It" was in the first season it presented there. The next production of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot will be "Macbeth," directed by Jesse Ontiveros, July 30 to August 15, also in the new location. This year, The Drilling Company is setting some kind of New York record by performing five free Shakespeare productions in five months. (Ironically, a Shakespeare play has five acts.) For Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, it is presenting "As You Like It" July 9 to 26 and "Macbeth" July 30 to August 15. For Bryant Park Shakespeare, it has perfomed "Two Gentlemen of Verona" May 15 to 31 and will perform "Romeo and Juliet," directed by Dave Marantz, July 17 to August 2 and "The Taming of the Shrew," directed by Alessandro Colla, September 4 to 20.

SparkNotes: As You Like It: Key Facts As You Like It full title · As You Like It author · William Shakespeare time and place written · 1598–1600; London, England date of first publication · First published in the Folio of 1623 publisher · Isaac Jaggard and Edmund Blount tone · Comic, romantic setting (place) · France, primarily the fictional Forest of Ardenne protagonist · Rosalind major conflict · Rosalind and Orlando fall in love, but Rosalind is unjustly banished from Duke Frederick’s court; Orlando is both denied his birthright by his jealous brother Oliver and forced to flee from the vindictive Duke Frederick. rising action · In order to teach Orlando how to be a proper husband to her, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man named Ganymede and instructs him in the ways of love. climax · Rosalind promises to marry Orlando and gets Phoebe to agree to marry Silvius, should things go awry with her beloved Ganymede, who is actually Rosalind in disguise.

falling action · Rosalind, appearing as herself, marries Orlando, and Phoebe marries Silvius. themes · The delights of love; the malleability of the human experience; city life versus country life motifs · Artifice; homoeroticism; exile symbols · Orlando’s poems; the slain deer; Ganymede foreshadowing · Rosalind’s uncharacteristically awkward first encounter with Orlando anticipates the depth of her affection for him. More Help

Question: In which Shakespeare play does most of the action place in the Forest of Arden?
Answer: As You Like It